Re: Understanding /root, /usr, /var and so on

[a_d@gmx.at (Albert Dengg)]

On Thu, Mar 30, 2006 at 04:13:52PM +0100, George Borisov wrote:
> Andrew Cady wrote:
> >
> > A little research reveals that the original AT&T Unix contained no
> > /sbin; however, the traditional contents of /sbin were present in /etc,
> > mixed with configuration files.  4.3BSD placed these files in /etc also,
> > but 4.4BSD moved them to /sbin, reserving /etc for configuration files
> > only.
> > 
> > Apparently the BSD folks decided in retrospect that mixing binaries with
> > configuration was a bad idea.  But why not put them in /bin? 
> 
> Just a guess, but a lot of the commands in /sbin require root
> privileges. If you put them in a separate place you can exclude them
> from a user's path. The same goes for /usr/sbin I suppose.
> 
> It's not perfect though: /sbin/ifconfig is very useful to non-root
> users, but it's not in the path. Another example would be /sbin/lsmod
> (which a non-root user would need to get help on the mailing lists ;-)
well i don't think a normal user (unless (s)he is also the system
administrator) should need lsmod that often because in the case (s)he needs
help, shouldn't (s)he ask his sysadmin/it support staff rather then
figuring out himself what is configured wrong on thing like kernel
modules?
and _if_ (s)he should need it, that are seldom cases and it is therefore no
problem to enter the full path...
because in my expience there _is_ a performance problem whith a long
path (especially with command completion...) and also whith command
completion, a user might get confused if (s)he gets lots of commands (s)he
can't execute or use...

yours
albert